97th Academy Awards Preview & Predictions

It's Oscar time once again, folks!  And that means that for the TENTH time(!) my colleague Mike Drinan and I will regale you with our predictions for who wins what awards!

Best Picture

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune Part Two

Emilia Pérez

I'm Still Here

Nickel Boys

The Substance

Wicked

Justin: It's a solid field this year based on the seven films I've seen (you can click on my individual reviews above).  I'm hoping to cram the last three nominees in over the next five days.  I loved Anora, A Complete Unknown, Dune and The Substance (only the fourth horror film to garner a Best Picture nod), enjoyed Conclave, and had mixed feelings about Wicked and Emilia Pérez.  For months it felt like The Brutalist was primed to take this award, but then Anora seemingly came out of nowhere and snagged the PGA award.  Oddsmakers are also not sleeping on Conclave, which could pull off an upset.  But I'll go with the modern-day Cinderella story to take home the gold.

Pick: Anora

Mike: I’ve only seen A Complete Unknown out of the bunch this year but I’ve wanted to see the majority of these nominees, except for Wicked. When I saw trailers for The Brutalist I was certain it was going to be the Best Picture. It just checked all the boxes for your typical Oscar winner, but then Anora kept popping up in coversations with Conclave and now it seems as if The Brutalist has fallen out of favor. Can’t sleep on Conclave though since voters love a good Catholic church drama. Like you, I’m going with Anora. There’s too much consistency in the response.

Pick: Anora

WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's February, er, March and that means it's time once again for WWE Elimination Chamber, the annual event where the world championship NOT being defended against the Royal Rumble winner gets a top contender for WrestleMania.  

Like Hell in a Cell, the Chamber was once one of WWE's most brutal gimmick matches, and like the Cell it was rather defanged during the PG era.  It almost seems redundant to have this match on the same PPV calendar as WarGames given how influenced by the latter was its inception, but whatever.  There have been some great Chamber matches over the years and some not-so-great ones (2002 I'm looking in your general direction), but it's usually a moderately enjoyable 35 minutes.  Having two on one show is taxing though, just like WarGames and the Rumble.

This year's lineup is only four bouts and on paper it's a decent enough slate.  Let's take a look.

Tiffany Stratton & Trish Stratus vs. Nia Jax & Candice LaRae

Okay I'm not sure why this is on here as it smacks of "free TV match," but here we are.  I'll keep saying it every time she's featured on a PPV, but if Triple H's decisions around who gets included on PPVs is all about talent regardless of ethnicity, then what in the blue fuck is Nia Jax doing on this show?  She stinks, period.  I don't imagine they brought Trish back to team with Tiffany just for them to lose, so they're my pick.

Pick: Trishany Strattonus

Oscar Film Journal: The English Patient (1996)

Welcome to another edition of the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Still plugging away at some older films I missed when they were new...

Today's subject is The English Patient, an epic romantic war drama that pulled in a staggering twelve Oscar nominations and walked away with nine awards, including Best Picture.  This was a film I resented at the time due to the fact that it beat out Fargo (a film I still consider basically perfect), but you can't form an intelligent opinion of a movie without seeing it, now can you?

The English Patient was written and directed by Anthony Minghella (based on the 1992 novel), and stars Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, and Willem Dafoe.  The story concerns both the lead-up to and aftermath of a plane crash, more precisely a biplane shot down by the Germans during World War II.  Of the plane's two passengers only one (Fiennes) survives, with severe burns all over his body.  He is taken to an Italian monastery and cared for by a French-Canadian nurse, who coaxes out of him some details of who he is and why he was in that plane.  Over the course of the film's 160-plus minutes we learn that although he speaks with an English accent, he is actually a Hungarian map-maker named Lazslo Almasy, stationed in North Africa in the late 1930s.  Almasy fell in love with another man's wife and the two had an affair, which the husband eventually discovered.  As this backstory is being recounted a wounded Canadian intelligence agent named Caravaggio arrives on the scene, showing great interest in Almasy and suspecting him of being the reason for Caravaggio's capture and torture at the hands of the Germans.  Meanwhile the nurse begins to fall in love with a Sikh bomb squad engineer stationed in the area.

Oscar Film Journal: Libeled Lady (1936)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com, where I'm slowly chipping away at the 280-something Best Picture nominees I haven't seen....

We're back in the 1930s with a romantic comedy called Libeled Lady, starring a pair of actors who were considered America's sweethearts back in the day, William Powell and Myrna Loy, plus Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow.  Powell and Loy starred in 13 films together, two of them in the year 1936, both nominated for Best Picture.  This particular film is about wealthy heiress Connie Allenbury (Loy), falsely accused by a newspaper of breaking up a marriage.  In retaliation she sues the paper, whose workaholic managing editor Warren Haggerty (Tracy) concocts a plan to stage an actual scandal in which to catch her, thus rendering the lawsuit easily dismissed.  Haggerty enlists his friend, former reporter Bill Chandler, to get married on paper to his own fiancée Gladys (Harlow) and then seduce Connie so Gladys can publicly discover the "affair."  But things don't go as planned, first because Connie initially doesn't show much interest in Bill, and later because the two of them actually start to fall in love.

Oscar Film Journal: Anora (2024)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Time for another 2024 nominee (only three more to go)!

Over the weekend I caught the unusual new comedy-drama Anora, written and directed by Sean Baker, about a high-priced stripper/escort who falls in love and elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch, only for things to go awry when the boy's domineering parents find out about the marriage.  That's about all the plot summary I can divulge without spoiling anything.

Mikey Madison gives a tour de force as the title character (who prefers to be called Ani), a stalwart, streetwise Russian-American living in Brooklyn.  Her work routine consists of flirting with her club's clientele and soliciting expensive private dances, occasionally offering more intimate services if the price is right.  Ani is presented not as a shame-filled woman desperate to improve her station, but as a confident sex worker fully in control of her craft, as it were.  She clearly enjoys what she does and mostly has loving relationships with her coworkers (one catty rival excepted).  But when she meets Ivan, a gentle and impressionable 21-year-old with seemingly unlimited cash, she jumps at the chance to make some serious bank while letting the kid fall for her, ultimately falling for him too.  The film initially feels like a modern Cinderella story of sorts, which is what I expected going into it.  But after the first act it takes a very (pleasantly) surprising turn.

Oscar Film Journal: Call Me By Your Name (2017)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  We're back in the 20-teens for this one...

Today it's the 2017 romantic drama Call Me By Your Name, starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer, directed by Luca Guadagnino, and written by James Ivory (who directed A Room With a View), from the novel by André Aciman.  CMBYN is the story of two young men who meet in 1980s Italy and reluctantly fall in love over the span of a summer.  Chalamet plays Elio, a precocious 17-year-old living with his parents.  His father invites one of his grad students, the 24-year-old Oliver (Hammer) to stay with them for the season.  Elio and Oliver initially don't seem to get along well but slowly they develop an almost brotherly bond, which gives way to an unspoken attraction.  Elio is the first to broach the subject but Oliver is reluctant to pursue anything, fearing the social implications.  Eventually the two give in to their feelings and share a very intense but sad romance in the short time remaining before Oliver has to return to the US.

Oscar Film Journal: The Big Chill (1983)

Welcome to another round of Oscar Film Journal shenanigans, here at Enuffa.com!

Heading to the 1980s once again for a film that I'd seen once a long time ago but needed to rewatch in order to write about it.  It's Lawrence Kasdan's ensemble piece The Big Chill, starring Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berenger, William Hurt, Mary Kay Place, JoBeth Williams, Meg Tilly, and infamously an uncredited Kevin Costner as various unidentifiable body part closeups of a dressed corpse.  

The film takes place over a weekend in South Carolina, when a group of old college buddies reunites for a friend's funeral.  Alex Marshall committed suicide for reasons the film doesn't disclose, and the group decide to spend a couple nights at the summer home of Harold (Kline) and Sarah (Close).  During those two days they talk, reminisce, argue, and wonder how they all went from idealistic 60s college kids to disillusioned 80s thirty-somethings.  Each of them has their issues and personality quirks; Sarah had an affair with Alex five years earlier and feels guilty that it hurt their friendship, Harold has become a successful, sometimes unscrupulous, rather conservative businessman, Michael (Goldblum) is a womanizer who works for People magazine but hates it, Sam (Berenger) has a hit TV cop show but his marriage has recently ended, Nick (Hurt) is a former TV psychologist and veteran who is now impotent and addicted to cocaine, Karen (Williams) is in a loveless marriage and has long carried a torch for Sam, Meg (Place) is chronically single but wants to have a baby, and Chloe (Tilly) is Alex's girlfriend who seems too emotionally immature to deal with the loss she's just experienced.  

Oscar Film Journal: Brooklyn (2015)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  We're heading back to the mid-20-teens....

And from there back to the early 1950s for John Crowley's romantic period drama Brooklyn, about an Irish immigrant starting a new life in America.  Saoirse Ronan stars as Eilis Lacey, a young woman with a go-nowhere job at a local grocery store in a small Irish town.  Eilis lives with her mother and sister and has basically no prospects, professional or romantic.  A priest who has already emigrated to New York sponsors Eilis's relocation and sets her up at a boarding house, arranges a department store job, and also enrolls her in night classes to learn accounting.  She meets an Italian-American boy named Tony and they immediately hit it off.  Everything is going well for Eilis in America, but a sudden family issue summons her back to Ireland, where her mother and friends and a well-to-do neighborhood fella named Jim Farrell all pressure her to stay, leaving her torn between her successful new life and her Irish roots.

Oscar Film Journal: Tender Mercies (1983)

And we're back with another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com, once again revisiting an 80s film that got the big nod (With this one under my belt I've now watched half the 1980s nominees).

Today it's the 1983 drama Tender Mercies, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Robert Duvall as a Mac Sledge, a former country & western singer, now a penniless drifter.  Mac stays with a friend at a roadside motel one night, they get drunk, and the friend beats him up and ditches him there.  The next morning instead of running out on his bill, he goes to the owner, a lonely widow named Rosa Lee (Tess Harper) and offers to work it off.  That leads to him becoming her employee, and later the two get married.  Mac develops a fatherly relationship with Rosa's son, filling a void left by the daughter he's no longer allowed to see.  One day a traveling young country band stops by for gas, having read a story about Mac in the local paper.  The band are big fans of his work, and over the course of a few weeks, coax him back into the music business.  At the same time Mac's daughter Sue Anne pays him a visit and the two begin to reconnect.

Oscar Film Journal: A Room with a View (1986)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  

Today I'm traveling back to the 1980s, and from the 1980s back to the turn of the century, via James Ivory's 1986 romance film A Room with a View, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith and Daniel Day-Lewis.  Based on E.M. Forster's 1908 novel, ARWAV tells the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman who meets and becomes interested in a free-spirited fellow countryman named George Emerson while on holiday in Florence.  The two share a conversation and an awkward kiss, but Lucy's older cousin Charlotte witnesses the incident and swears Lucy to secrecy.  Back in England Lucy agrees to marry an uptight fop named Cecil Vyse, but things become complicated when George and his father move into the neighborhood, and Lucy must decide which gentleman's company she'd prefer.

This film was released to universal acclaim and was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, and, well.....I don't get it.  A Room with a View felt to me like what popcorn filmgoers think of when they think "stuffy award-winning period piece."  The source material was meant to be kind of a satirical look at well-to-do British society in the early 1900s, but for me the film didn't convey much of this humor at all, aside from Daniel Day-Lewis's portrayal being amusing; he's a hopelessly prim and proper dandy who isn't even able to kiss a girl without knocking the glasses off his face.  But other than that I didn't feel much of anything throughout this film.

Oscar Film Journal: The Red Shoes (1948)

Welcome back to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, 2025!  

Today I'll be reviewing a classic early color film from 1948, a British production entitled The Red Shoes, co-directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.  This whimsical film is about an up-and-coming ballet dancer who becomes an overnight sensation but is quickly forced to choose between her art and her love life, by her domineering company director.  The narrative is simple and familiar, but the storytelling is handled so artfully, particularly in a stunning 17-minute ballet centerpiece, that the film defies genre and has become a favorite of many lauded directors.

Oscar Film Journal: Pygmalion (1938)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Still making my way through the 1930s to fill in the gaps....

Today I'm talkin' about the 1938 Best Pic nominee Pygmalion, based on the play by George Bernard Shaw, itself inspired by a Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with one of his creations, causing her to come to life.  The play and film however are about a professor of linguists named Higgins, who as a social experiment takes a poor flower girl Eliza under his wing and teaches her to be classy and sophisticated, hoping to pass her off to his contemporaries as a duchess.  Eliza agrees to the arrangement as a way to advance socially but Higgins is very callous in his training and sees her as subhuman, often brutal in his dismissiveness.  As she becomes more and more educated the two of them develop chemistry together, but Eliza also begins to assert her independence, with Higgins both annoyed and intrigued by her newfound confidence.

Oscar Film Journal: Emilia Pérez (2024)

Welcome to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Chipping away at this year's nominees....

With that in mind, let's talk about the new crime musical Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard and starring Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon and Selena Gomez.  Emilia Pérez concerns a hardworking but unappreciated Mexican lawyer named Rita, whose clientele mostly consists of sleazy businessman types for whom she manages to get acquittals despite thinking they're obviously guilty.  One night she receives a mysterious phone call offering millions of tax-free dollars to arrange an unspecified favor.  She is blindfolded and thrown in a van, and it turns out her strange benefactor is a powerful drug lord named "Manitas" Del Monte.  Manitas enlists Rita to procure a secret gender reassignment procedure so he can disappear and assume a new, fulfilling life as a woman, and also to move his wife and sons to Switzerland to ensure their safety.  The plan goes off without a hitch, but things become complicated when Emilia Perez, as Manitas is now known, wants her family back by her side in Mexico.  Rita helps Emilia establish the subterfuge that she is Manitas's wealthy distant cousin, now a philanthropist helping the families of drug cartel victims.  

Oscar Film Journal: Marty (1955)

And it's time for another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!  With this film under my belt I'm down to only five remaining calendar years where I haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominees: 1935, 1936, 1949, 1956 & 1959.

Today's subject is the 1955 Best Pic winner, which at 93 minutes holds the distinction of being the shortest film to ever take home the big trophy, Marty, starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair.  This light-hearted dramedy directed by Delbert Mann and written by Paddy Chayefsky (based on his own teleplay) is about a lonely bachelor in his mid-thirties whose siblings have all gotten married.  Marty works as a neighborhood butcher and despite pressure from his family and customers, has more or less accepted that he'll never find a nice girl to settle down with.  We learn very early in the film that it's not for lack of trying; at his friend Angie's suggestion he makes a phone call to a woman he met at a movie theater a month earlier and asks her out again, but she turns him down flat.  Marty lives with his widowed, old-fashioned mother who all but pushes him out of the house that night to go to a singles dance, and after striking out all night he notices a sad girl sitting by herself, her blind date having ditched her.  Marty and Clair spend the evening dancing, talking, walking around the neighborhood, and form a rather sweet, innocent connection despite their shared social awkwardness.  But by the next day his mother and his friends discourage him from calling her up again, entirely for their own selfish reasons.

Oscar Film Journal: Awakenings (1990)

Time for another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Here's an early-90s drama that I was interested in at the time but just never got around to seeing.  Awakenings, starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro and directed by Penny Marshall, is a medical drama based on true events, about a young, curious doctor assigned to the neurological disorder wing of a hospital in the Bronx.  The year is 1969, and Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Williams) discovers that all the patients in this particular group had suffered a specific form of encephalitis that rendered them catatonic.  But it turns out this catatonia can be momentarily broken by specific stimuli, for example tossing a patient a tennis ball to catch, or playing a piece of music that speaks to them.  With one patient Leonard Lowe (DeNiro), Sayer is able to communicate via the letters on a Ouija board.  He theorizes that the shared disorder of these patients is similar to Parkinson's, that their tremors became so severe they caused the patients to simply freeze up.  A Parkinson's drug called L-DOPA is administered to Leonard, and overnight he can move and speak again, after spending three decades as a prisoner in his own body.  The drug is used on the rest of the ward with similar results, but unfortunately the disease isn't such a simple one to cure.

Oscar Film Journal: The Substance (2024)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry here at Enuffa.com!  Time for a wacky one....

Today I'll be talking about the outrageous body horror/black comedy film The Substance, written and directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat.  This often funny, often nauseatingly disgusting social commentary stars Demi Moore as an aging former movie star turned TV fitness host Elisabeth Sparkle.  Elisabeth has just turned fifty and is informed by her producer Harvey (a gleefully slimy Dennis Quaid) that she's being forced into retirement and replaced by a younger model.  She then learns of a new miracle medical breakthrough that allows an older person to become "a more perfect version" of themselves on a weekly part-time basis.  Elisabeth then assumes the mantle of "Sue" (a glowing Margaret Qualley) and lands the TV fitness host gig, but things start to go awry when Sue doesn't want to go back to being Elisabeth.  More plot details I will not spoil here, as it's best to know as little as possible.

Oscar Film Journal: Dead End (1937)

Time for another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Still chipping away at the catalogue of Best Picture nominees....

Today's entry is the 1937 crime drama Dead End, based on the 1935 play of the same name.  Dead End was helmed by acclaimed director William Wyler (Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives) and stars Sylvia Sidney (who you might remember as Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis's chain-smoking caseworker in Beetlejuice), Joel McCrea, and a young-ish Humphrey Bogart.  The story takes place in a run-down Manhattan tenement neighborhood, at a time when wealthy developers were beginning to take advantage of the view of the East River and building ritzy high-rises right next to poor riverfront property.  Drina (Sidney) and Dave (McCrea) are lifelong friends who clearly have feelings for each other, but Dave has been seeing well-to-do neighbor Kay, who is also attached to a rich fellow.  Drina's brother Tommy is part of a juvenile street gang involved in petty crime and bullying, but she dreams of getting out.  An old acquaintance of Dave's shows up after a long absence, Hugh "Baby Face" Martin (Bogart), and we find out he's wanted for multiple murders and has been on the run for years, having changed his name and gotten plastic surgery.  Martin is back in town to visit an old flame in the hopes of taking her on the road with him.

Oscar Film Journal: Conclave (2024)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal - hey this one's a current nominee!

The Pope dies.  The Dean of the College of Cardinals must oversee the election of a new Pope, and somehow remain impartial and sequestered with the other Cardinals, while also taking into account any information that might disqualify a particular candidate, including dirty secrets the previous Pope may have kept hidden.  Such is the dilemma facing Thomas Lawrence in Edward Berger's followup to his superb All Quiet on the Western Front, a mystery thriller entitled Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini.

Oscar Film Journal: Wicked (2024)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  We have another current nominee for ya!

Today it's the smash-hit from last Thanksgiving season, the much-anticipated film version of the smash-hit Broadway show Wicked!  Or Wicked: Part 1, more accurately.  Yes, the FIRST ACT of the two-and-a-half-hour stage show was stretched out to 160 minutes for the screen.  Jesus, Hollywood, do ya not believe in editing rooms anymore??

Anyway, this Wizard of Oz prequel was directed by John M. Chu of Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights fame, and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as the two main characters, Elphaba Thropp (or The Wicked Witch of the West as she would later be known) and Glinda the Good Witch of the North.  But of course this film takes place before either of them earned their famous monikers, when they were just students at Shiz University ("This school is the shiz!").  Galinda Upland as she was known then was a well-to-do, popular, entitled young woman, while Elphaba was an outcast of modest means, gifted in magic but isolated from her peers due to her green skin (one of two very on-the-nose metaphors in this film).  One of the school's prominent professors (Michelle Yeoh) takes an interest in Elphaba and thinks she shows enough promise to meet the celebrated Wizard (Jeff Goldbum, playing Jeff Goldblum).  This sparks jealousy from Galinda, who has been assigned against her will as Elphaba's roommate.  The two have an Odd Couple-esque relationship before finally becoming friends, and Galinda comes to support Elphaba's visit to the Emerald City.  But all is not what it seems....

WWE Royal Rumble 2025 Review: Jey Uso Yeets the Odds

The 38th WWE Royal Rumble is in the books, and it was a solid show, better than it's been in a handful of years anyway.  There wasn't anything great on the show I didn't think, but nothing bad either.  Picking a best match and worst match is tough because everything was in the 3.5 to 4 star range.  I had some gripes about some things but we'll get to that.  It was definitely too long a show, that's for sure.  Four hours and eighteen minutes is a long time for any PPV.

The show kicked off with the women's Rumble, and I think this was the most fun match for me.  Despite less star power than the men's, this match had a lot of exciting young talent, many of them from NXT, and the match cut a good pace that kept everything moving.  Iyo Sky, Ivy Nile, Lash Legend, Jordynne Grace, and Stephanie Vaquer all looked very good.  Nia Jax got to be the Kane of this match and eliminate 9 women.  I was surprised Becky Lynch didn't return, but instead we got Alexa Bliss.  As expected Charlotte Flair ended up winning, last eliminating Roxanne Perez of all people.  Also Iyo, Roxanne and Liv Morgan all beat Bayley's record from last year, which as I said in my preview has gotten out of hand.  If you keep breaking the longevity record it becomes pretty meaningless.  They certainly didn't need to do it three times in this one match.  Both Rumbles went excessively long, this one at 70 minutes.  But it looks like Tiffany vs. Charlotte for Mania most likely, unless the plan is a rubber match with Rhea Ripley.  ***3/4

Oscar Film Journal: The Apartment (1960)

Welcome to the first Oscar Film Journal installment of 2025!  For those just joining us, my goal over the next several years is to watch every Best Picture-nominated film ever.  When I decided four years ago to undertake this.....undertaking, I'd already viewed 214 of the then 563 all-time nominees.  As of this writing I'm up to 305 out of 600 (One film from the 2nd Oscars, The Patriot, is lost and therefore unavailable).

Today I'll be talking about the Best Pic winner for 1960, Billy Wilder's romantic dramedy, The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray.  Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter (or "Bud" as his coworkers know him), a lowly desk jockey at a New York insurance firm who allows a handful of office managers to use his apartment for their extramarital affairs in exchange for glowing job reviews, in the hope of becoming an executive.  This bizarre and rather grotesque arrangement begins to pay off with a promotion, but the catch is the company's top personnel director Jeff Sheldrake (MacMurray) wants in on the fun as well, in addition to his own copy of Baxter's key.  Baxter develops a crush on Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), one of the building's elevator operators, unaware that Fran is having an affair with the married Sheldrake, who's been stringing her along for two years, promising he'll divorce his wife.

WWE Royal Rumble 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's January and that means it's time for the annual WWE Royal Rum-- wait, it's not in January this year?  What the hell??  Yes, for the first time ever WWE's equivalent of the All-Star Game is in February for some reason.  Fortunately the lineup this year actually looks pretty good, with the men's Rumble boasting several credible combatants with a chance of winning, plus the two undercard bouts look great on paper.  The women's Rumble not quite so much.  Then again only 1/3 of the field has been announced for that one.

But let's take a look....

Women's Royal Rumble

Yeah, not much star power going on here.  You have Bayley, Iyo, Liv, Bianca and a returning Charlotte Flair, plus five other names, Nia Jax, Naomi, Raquel Rodriguez, Lyra Valkyria and Ivy Nile.  I assume the newly signed Jordynn Grace will join the fun, maybe Jade Cargill will return from injury, and rumors abound that Becky Lynch will be back after a several-month hiatus.  But this match looks on paper to be yet another sequence of entrances without much in the way of story advancement, until someone wins.  And aside from the 2023 men's Rumble that approach has plagued these events for the last several years.  I think either Charlotte or Becky wins this to set up either Tiffany vs. Charlotte (so Flair can squash yet another up-and-comer's push at 'Mania), or maybe a Becky vs. Rhea rematch from last year.  I'll go with Charlotte though.

Pick: Charlotte Flair, so she can pad her World Title wins

The 2024 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the 11th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I hand out nonexistent awards for achievements in a pretend sport. Unlike Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its readers though, I actually pay attention to companies not named WWE at the end of the year, because how much money a wrestling product makes is of little consequence to me when it comes to judging its quality.....

Another year gone, another 12 months of "WWE great, AEW bad, because money" discourse.  Ho-lee shit am I tired of hearing that one.  As a wrestling fan watching a wrestling show, does the amount of money or people watching said show even enter your mind as you're enjoying or not enjoying it?  If it does, I feel like you're doing it wrong.  

Yes, WWE once again smashed records for another year, partly due to the exorbitant prices they're now able charge for tickets (They're laughing at you folks), but partly because their product is still legitimately very popular at levels we haven't seen since the Attitude Era.  Don't ask me why that's the case, I watched a lot of it in 2024 and I still can't figure it out.  Is it better than the unwatchable shit show the company had long become under Vince?  Absolutely.  Is it the best work WWE has ever done?  No.  Stop with that hyperbolic nonsense.  

Yes, AEW once again struggled with ticket sales and their ratings are down from a year earlier (along with virtually everything else on the dying medium known as cable television.  But, and this is a big but, AEW just signed a new TV deal worth over half a billion dollars over three years, which will make them the second-most profitable wrestling company in history.  Surely to the folks judging a wrestling product by the amount of money it pulls in this means something, right?  RIGHT??  Oh, apparently not, we're still dealing with "AEW circling the drain" bullshit, despite the massive chunk of change it's bringing in now.  Weird how quickly the goalposts moved.

NJPW is in a rebuilding period, having lost two more of their top stars in 2024 in Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay.  And while they haven't figured out who exactly will take the place of those two legendary performers, they have a strong slate of up-and-comers in Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji, Yuye Uemura, David Finlay and Gabe Kidd.  Plus Zack Sabre Jr. is carrying the ball admirably for the time being.  There's reason to be hopeful about NJPW's future.  

So with all that said, let's hand out some awards....

 

NJPW/AEW/CMLL/ROH/Stardom Wrestle Dynasty Review

The second of the two nights at the Tokyo Dome was the cross-promotional extravaganza Wrestle Dynasty, featuring stars from NJPW, AEW, CMLL, ROH and Stardom.  It was much less storyline-driven than WrestleKingdom 19 and thus didn't draw the box office of the latter (16,000 tickets vs. 25,000 the night before), but overall Dynasty ended up being the stronger wrestling show, boasting an absolutely wild semi-main event plus a slew of good supporting bouts.

The opener was the mystery gauntlet match which involved Jr. Heavyweights from NJPW and some CMLL stars.  Hechicero and Kosei Fujita started things off and were rapidly joined by Soberano Jr., Master Wato, Taiji Ishimori, Mascara Dorada, Titan, and finally El Desperado, fresh off his title win the night before.  Lots of fast-paced action and aerial spots before Taiji stole a pin on Despy to set up a title shot.  This was an enjoyable party match to start things off but didn't need 16 minutes when 12 would've done.  ***1/4

Next was the Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata match set up at WrestleKingdom.  Sadly it was a five-minute exhibition so obviously no one was going to win this.  They locked up and stayed that way for an uncomfortably long time and then did a chopping battle, and that was about it.  Maybe we'll see a real match out of these two before Tana hangs it up?  N/R

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown (2024)

Welcome to a special movie review here at Enuffa.com!  It's not often we do this, but since my colleague Mike Drinan and I are both huge Bob Dylan fans and we've both seen the new Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, we thought we'd tag team this one.  

A Complete Unknown was directed by James Mangold, based on the book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald.  Timothee Chalamet stars as the mercurial singer-songwriter who turned folk music on its ear and stirred up big-time controversy when he broke tradition at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by playing rock n' roll songs.  The film covers his 1961 arrival in New York City's folk scene through that fateful festival, plus his relationships with mentor Pete Seeger and two of his major romantic interests, Joan Baez and Suze Rotolo (called Sylvie Russo in the film).

JB: Mike, what are your thoughts on A Complete Unknown?

NJPW WrestleKingdom 19 Review: The Feeling Is Coming Back

This past weekend gave us a pair of Tokyo Dome shows, one the traditional WrestleKingdom PPV, the other a special cross-promotional show featuring not only NJPW stars but guests from AEW, CMLL, ROH and Stardom.  Both nights offered lots of good wrestling and I'll get to the Wrestle Dynasty review soon, but first let's take a look at WrestleKingdom 19.

This show didn't quite recapture the magic of NJPW's recent golden age but it did feel like a step in the right direction, with a big focus on the younger generation of stars and a feeling of commitment to the future.  There wasn't a bona fide Match of the Year on this show but there were a few matches just below that level and plenty of drama in the main event.

The show kicked off with a 4-way tag team ladder match for the Jr. Tag belts, with Intergalactic Jet Setters defending against Catch 2/2, Bullet Club War Dogs and Ichiban Street Boys.  This was a pretty standard ladder match with lots of action and big spots, some of which didn't land.  I think I'd have preferred a straight 4-way like the openers of WrestleKingdoms past.  As I expected, the one team who hadn't held these titles came out on top, with Kosei Fujita grabbing the belts for his team.  Solid opener.  ***1/2

NJPW/AEW/CMLL/ROH/Stardom Wrestle Dynasty Preview & Predictions

WrestleKingdom 19 isn't the only big event taking place at the Tokyo Dome this weekend.  On January 5th there's a huge cross-promotional PPV with stars from NJPW, AEW, CMLL, ROH and Stardom, and it looks on paper like a doozy of a lineup.  Among the numerous first-time bouts is the in-ring return of Kenny Omega, after 14 months on the shelf.  This show looks just as exciting as WK19, even if there isn't a big story to most of the matches.

Let's dive in.  Note: There's an 8-man gauntlet match where the participants won't be announced until the match is happening, so obviously I can't predict that one.

Pre-Show Women's International Cup: Willow Nightingale vs. Athena vs. Persephone vs. Momo Watanabe

I'm a little disappointed this isn't on the main card since AEW spent a fair amount of time setting up their portion of it.  The winner gets a title shot in a promotion of their choosing.  Since Willow is beloved everywhere she goes, I'll pick her to win here.

Pick: Willow

Pre-Show ROH Tag Team Championship: Sammy Guevara & Dustin Rhodes vs. Sho & Yoshinobu Kanemaru

House of Torture is involved here so get ready for a clusterfuck.  I suppose HoT could win to set up a title defense in the US but I'd be a little surprised if the ROH Tag belts get that kind of treatment at this point.  I think the champs keep them.

Pick: Sammy & Dustin retain

NJPW WrestleKingdom 19 Preview & Predictions

Ten years ago I sat down to watch a pro wrestling PPV event from a company that was entirely new to me.  I had heard great things about this company from sources like Wrestling Observer and noticed that a few familiar faces were plying their trade over there, and I was excited to check out something new and fresh.  After 28 years as a wrestling fan I was long overdue for a product that actually excited me, something WWE had been failing to do since 2002 and Ring of Honor had stopped doing around 2010.  I figured I'd give this other thing a try, and subscribed to NJPW World to watch their flagship event, WrestleKingdom 9.  And I was treated to one of the greatest wrestling shows I'd ever seen.  From there NJPW became my new favorite wrestling product (till about 2021) and their stellar matches ate up my annual Top 10 ranking.  Hard to believe that was already a decade ago.  New Japan changed the business in a big way around the time of that event, exposing WWE-weary fans to a whole new philosophy and style of what a wrestling show could look like.  Over the next few years they gained so much ground in North America and inspired so many fans like me who needed an alternative, that a whole new company was spawned.  NJPW has seen tumultuous times since their 2012-2019 golden age, but January 4th at the Tokyo Dome will always feel special.

With that in mind let's look at this year's WrestleKingdom 19 show.  This lineup finally feels like a fresh start, from a company that desperately needs one.  Most of the top stars from the aforementioned golden age are either nearing retirement or have moved on to other companies, and it's way past time for New Japan's next generation to show us what they've got.  This show feels like that moment has finally arrived.  

**Side note**: Every year the preshow consists of a Rumble (or Ranbo as they call it), where everyone not on the main card gets a few minutes of fun.  This year though, the winner of the Ranbo gets a World Title shot, so for the first time there's actually something at stake.  No idea who's in this thing but maybe someone will either return from excursion or they'll bring in an outside guest from AEW to set up a PPV match.

AEW Worlds End 2024 Review: Ospreay's Double Duty

AEW closed 2024 with a bang, delivering yet another excellent PPV in Worlds End.  Unlike the 2023 edition which was fine but a bit underwhelming, this was a streamlined 8-match card where the worst thing on the show was still very good, plus we got two instant classics, two big returns, and a slew of **** bouts.  In fact only one of the eight matches failed to crack that ceiling for me.

The show kicked off with one of the best opening matches I've ever seen, as Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher renewed their heated feud in a Continental Classic semifinal.  This was 16 blistering minutes of two of the top in-ring workers today, building on what they did last month at Full Gear.  Ospreay bled early and by mid-match his face was covered in crimson, which splattered all over the ring like a grotesque work of pointillist art.  Fletcher cemented himself as one of the most over heels in the company, alternating crowd-pleasing moves with smarmy asshole antics.  At one point a fan held up a sign that said "Ospreay better," which Fletcher grabbed and tore in half, and the fan held up another sign saying "Ospreay still better."  I laughed.  The match built to a peak of nearfalls and counters until Ospreay put Fletcher away with a Styles Clash (which paid off in a hot nearfall later in the night).  Fantastic match and it wasn't even the best thing on the show.  *****

Movie Review: Nosferatu (2024)

Visionary horror director Robert Eggers is back with his highly-anticipated reimagining of F.W. Murnau's Expressionist milestone Nosferatu, starring Bill Skarsgard, Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult.  A long-gestating passion project of Eggers', this film was originally to be his sophomore effort after the unexpected success of The Witch, but Eggers felt he wasn't yet ready to tackle such a monumental piece.  Murnau's original film is what inspired Eggers to become a filmmaker in the first place, and he even directed a stage version in high school, complete with black and white imagery and makeup, and dialogue cards.  So there was a lot riding on this project and Eggers wanted to really put in the time developing it properly.

This version of Nosferatu pulls no punches, both in terms of atmospheric dread and grisly imagery.  True to Robert Eggers form, the sense of dread is oppressive from the opening prologue, where we see a young Ellen make a lonely pact with an evil spirit in the form of the titular vampire.  Unique to this version of the story, the heroine is bound to this parasitic creature all along and is long tormented by visions of death and doom.  Years later her husband Thomas Hutter, a Wisborg real estate clerk, is sent to Transylvania to execute the purchase of an old ruined building by the mysterious Count Orlok, and the transaction awakens Orlok to the existence of the young girl he encountered all those years ago.  From there bedlam ensues as Orlok makes his way to Wisborg, bringing plague and demonic possession.

AEW Worlds End 2024 Preview & Predictions

The final AEW PPV of 2024 is upon us, capping off an absolutely stellar run of events, arguably the best single calendar year of wrestling PPVs to date.  If anyone's got a better example, comment below.  But AEW's weakest PPV this year was probably Double or Nothing, which I still gave 9 out of 10.  That's remarkable.

Anyway on to Worlds End 2024.  Once again this show is partly about crowning the Continental Champion, and unlike last year we have the semis and finals all on one card, plus a host of other strong bouts (and likely one or two more to be added last-minute).  

SPOILER ALERT: The final CC bouts haven't aired on TV yet, so some of you may not already know who's in the semis.

International Championship: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Powerhouse Hobbs

This one stems from the fact that Don Callis allowed Hobbs' contract with the Callis Family to run out while Hobbs was on the shelf.  Since returning Hobbs has gotten right in the faces of the Family, and thus we have this title match.  Should be a pretty great, hard-hitting match.  Problem is I don't really want to see either of these guys lose here.  I think Takeshita probably has more time with the belt, but Hobbs also needs to get the big push because he's a potential breakout star.

Pick: I think Takeshita retains through nefarious means

Top Ten Things: WWF Saturday Night's Main Event Matches

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things here at Enuffa.com, where I count down the ten best (or worst) items pertaining to something-or-other....

Today I'm talking about what used to be, for me growing up at least, the greatest wrestling show on television, Saturday Night's Main Event.  For those not familiar with the show (I'm not sure I wanna know you), Saturday Night's Main Event aired a few times a year on NBC during Saturday Night Live's timeslot and usually featured four or five matches taped a few weeks earlier.  This was back when you almost never saw real matches on free television, as the weekly shows generally consisted of quick squash matches designed to draw ticket buyers to local house shows.  But every couple months we were treated to a handful of competitive bouts between top stars, and it was EVENT VIEWING.  As a 12-year-old who never got to see the PPVs until they were available on VHS, seeing Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage or The Ultimate Warrior wrestle a match on free TV was the most monumental thing happening that month.

The show's initial run ended in '92 (following a one-year move from NBC to Fox) before it resurfaced in 2006-07.  Unfortunately by that time the magic was gone, as fans had long been accustomed to seeing big free TV matches every week on RAW and Smackdown.  SNME was clearly a pre-Monday Night War phenomenon and so far hasn't worked in the modern era.  But maybe the 2024 incarnation will be different, we'll see.  But at the time of its original run it was truly a delight.

Here now are the ten greatest matches in the history of this fantastic show. (Note: for the purposes of this column I've included the air date as opposed to the taping date)

10. Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bossman - 5/27/89

Hogan's first televised WWF Title defense after WrestleMania V was against his old foe The Big Bossman, in a steel cage no less.  At the time I had jumped off the Hogan bandwagon, siding with Randy Savage in the MegaPowers split.  Thus I wasn't terribly excited about this match going in, nor did I care for Hogan's No Holds Barred nemesis Zeus being integrated into WWF storylines.  Zeus attacked Hogan prior to this match to add a little suspense, but it was obvious Bossman wasn't winning the belt here.  However the match itself turned out to be a very entertaining cage brawl, the highlight of which was Hogan suplexing Bossman off the top of the steel structure.  In 1989 that spot was one of the most death-defying things I had ever seen, and it made this a very memorable bout.

9. Mr. Perfect vs. Tito Santana - 7/28/90

On a stacked SNME episode that featured three Title matches, what seemed like a throwaway Intercontinental defense turned out to be a very well-worked, show-stealing match.  This aired a month before Summerslam, and oddly they gave away the scheduled Warrior-Rude PPV main event on this show for free (I know the SS match was in a cage, but still).  So there wasn't much suspense there, and even less in the Tag Team Title match, as Demolition (scheduled to face the Hart Foundation at the PPV) defended against The Rockers here.  But Mr. Perfect, whose Summerslam opponent was up in the air following Brutus Beefcake's infamous parasailing accident, would face the man he defeated to win the vacant I-C Title that April, Tito Santana.  At the time I feared Perfect would drop the Title here, setting up a rematch at the PPV, but with some help from Bobby Heenan ("He's gotta beat you!  You don't hafta beat him!") on the outside, Perfect delivered a successful and enjoyable Title defense.

8. Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff - 1/3/87

At the time this was one of the WWF's biggest televised matches, being the blowoff for the legendary Hogan-Orndorff feud which lasted through most of 1986.  It was also the first steel cage match ever shown on free WWF television, and therefore felt like a huge deal.  While this doesn't get a lot of points for technique, it was a pretty good brawl that led to a false ending, when both men escaped the cage simultaneously.  As I recall this was the first time I ever saw such a scenario, where two different referees declared opposing winners.  The show broke for a commercial and when it resumed the match had been restarted.  This of course led to Hogan getting the clear victory, settling this rivalry and freeing the Champion up for his impending feud with Andre the Giant.

WWE Survivor Series 2024 Review: Watered-Down WarGames

WWE Survivor Series: Watered Down WarGames III has come and gone, and it was basically exactly what I expected, a mediocre show with two overlong gimmick matches, and I do mean overlong.  The two WarGames bouts totaled eighty, EIGHTY minutes, most of which was pretty skippable.  I'll keep saying it till they listen: WWE WarGames needs to either go away or be a once-in-a-great-while event.  Both of the top-billed matches would've been infinitely better as elimination bouts.  If you're not gonna either reintroduce blood or create some truly unforgettable moments, don't try to recreate the magic of Dusty's brainchild.  There was some decent wrestling on this show but nothing worth going out of your way to see except maybe the Intercontinental Title match.

The opening match, the Women's WarGames, didn't officially start until 15 minutes into the show.  Why does this company waste so much airtime on window dressing?  Bayley and Nia Jax, yes, the cosmically inept Nia Jax, started the match.  Miss me with Triple H's "I only see talent" bullshit.  Nia is there because her cousin is on the Board of Directors, period.  Nia and Bayley exchanged awkward sequences for a while until Bayley removed a leather sleeve she was wearing and started whipping Nia.  Nia took it away and whipped her right back.  Naomi entered to the rescue, bringing in a kendo stick (of fucking course) and a toilet seat.  Sorry, why is a toilet seat under the ring?  Event security needs to be way more diligent leading up to showtime apparently.  Naomi beat Nia down with the stick and the babyfaces double-teamed Nia until Candice LaRae came in for the save, bringing in two chairs.  Nia grabbed one and clumsily whacked both faces with it.  The heels took out both of them.  Bianca entered next and brought in a trash can, a fire extinguisher, a table and a chair.  Does every entrant need to bring in multiple stupid weapons?  And doesn't it undermine the urgency of saving your friends when you spend a minute and a half searching for shit under the ring?  Tiffany Stratton was next for the heels, and she brought in a trash can.  Tiffany cleaned house and then did some bad-looking tandem moves with Nia.  Iyo Sky was next and had to run to the opposite side of the ring to find a weapon, in this case a custom trash can with a rope attached so she could do her top-of-the-cage dive (if the implication is that Iyo placed that under the ring, why did she put it as far away from the entrance as possible?).  Candice cut her off and they set up a sunset flip bomb but Iyo lost her grip and they had to settle for a top rope dropkick.  Iyo beat everyone up with a chair until Nia knocked her down.  Raquel Rodriguez entered next and, you guessed it, stopped to find stuff to bring in with her, in this case a table, which she didn't even bring in.  She looked for something else but couldn't find it.  If you're gonna have everyone bring in a weapon shouldn't you also have them memorize where to look for it so they don't come off like idiots?  Nia and Raquel beat everyone up.  Rhea Ripley was the final entrant for her team and brought in the table Raquel pulled out, but got triple teamed.  But the babyfaces ran wild and Rhea whacked everyone with the toilet seat.  Liv Morgan was last, and hesitated because Rhea was the only woman standing.  Liv brought in a baseball bat.  Rhea removed the mask she was wearing to protect her injured orbital bone but the heels ganged up on her.  Liv beat her down with the bat.  Everyone took turns hitting moves on each other.  Iyo and Tiffany each climbed opposite corners so everyone else could get into position - uhh, shouldn't the climb be AFTER everyone's in position?  Did all the participants read the script?  Iyo hit her trademark trashcan moonsault on one side while Tiffany hit a swanton.  Ring psychology my ass.  Tiffany pulled her Money in the Bank briefcase out of a trashcan and teased a cash-in but Iyo sprayed everyone with the fire extinguisher while Rhea handcuffed Raquel to the ropes.  Nia put Bianca on a table and teased a Vader Bomb but Bianca and Naomi powerbombed her through it.  Liv hit Oblivion on Bayley but Rhea made the save and the two rivals fought.  Liv went for Oblivion off the top rope but Rhea countered into a Riptide through the table for the win.  Last few minutes of this were entertaining but as usual this was sanitized, weapons-heavy and mostly devoid of a story.  It was about Rhea and Liv, who didn't enter until the end of the match.  And in what universe do you put Nia in for the whole thing??  **1/2

WWE Survivor Series 2024 Preview & Predictions

Saturday marks the 38th annual Survivor Series event, and once again the branding need not apply because Hunter's still all-in on Watered-Down WarGames.  That should be the new name of this event in fact.  

Substitute chairs, trash cans and kendo sticks for the brutality that once was WarGames (and still is AEW's Blood and Guts), and you have WWE's November PPV.  Anyway, it's once again built around the goddamn Bloodline, but now we have random special guests added!  The women's WarGames match is even thinner, as it's just Rhea vs. Liv essentially, with a buncha partners, which once again would work much better as a Survivor Series match, that's what those used to be about.  WarGames was supposed to be 4 or 5 people on each team that had a team blood feud.  The men's match is at least sorta built like that.  On the bright side, the undercard is much stronger this year than last.  But why the hell isn't Cody on this show?  Instead they have him fighting Kevin Owens again, on Saturday Night's Main Event.  Cody's title run has to be one of the most boring babyface runs ever that started out super-hot.  Once again this show is devoid of any black male wrestlers, by the way.  Hunter's never beating those allegations....

Anyway let's look at this thing....

US Championship: LA Knight vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Christ, the way WWE has ruined one of the greatest Japanese wrestlers of all time needs to be studied.  As someone who considered the 2015 Nakamura the best wrestler in the world at that time, I don't even recognize what he's become.  Dull, ineffectual, powderpuff offense where there used to be unmatched intensity and charisma.  Fucking shameful.  Can he get the fuck outta this place and go to AEW or back to NJPW while he still has a few good years left?  Anyway, either guy could win this I suppose.  Seems early to take the belt off Knight but it would be the only title change on this show.  At the same time, Nakamura's beaten roughly nobody in the last five years or so.  Eh, I'll throw the guy a bone since no one else will.

Pick: Nakamura

AEW Full Gear 2024 Review: Yet Another Gem

The sixth edition of AEW Full Gear is in the books, and it was yet another gem of a PPV.  Tons of good-to-great wrestling, lots of storyline advancement, and yet another Match of the Year contender from Will Ospreay.  Aside from the Newark crowd being rather languid for a lot of the show, this was a helluva PPV.

The action started with the 4-way party match, as AEW Tag Champs Private Party defended against Kings of the Black Throne, The Acclaimed, and fan favorites The Outrunners.  This was your usual nonstop action opener, all four teams got some time to shine.  The bigger story was the teased dissension of The Acclaimed, as Max Caster was acting very heelish and getting booed.  At one point Caster tried to get Anthony Bowens to pin him so they'd win the match.  Bowens obliged and the ref counted to two before the pin was broken up.  Not sure why the ref would agree to count that, but WWE's done the same thing in the past (so everyone up in their feels about this spot can relax).  Anyway, Caster and Bowens not being on the same page ultimately cost them as Private Party was able to hit Gin n' Juice on Caster to retain.  Good fast-paced opener.  ***1/2

Next was the MJF-Roderick Strong match, and while the crowd clearly wanted MJF-Cole instead (which is obviously being saved for the anniversary of Cole's reveal as The Devil), both these guys worked hard to get them on board.  MJF did lots of trash talking and worked over Strong's fingers, at one point shoving them through the turnbuckle and trying to break them.  Strong made a comeback with his myriad of suplexes, but Max was able to lock in Salt of the Earth and pull on Strong's injured hand to get the tapout.  Max then proceeded to Pillmanize (crazy that we're still using that term 28 years later) Roddy's arm, which brought out the rest of Undisputed Kingdom.  Max took a powder and then Kyle O'Reilly ran down and shoved Adam Cole to the mat, following up on his promo last week that Cole's vendetta against MJF is getting his friends hurt.  Very good match.  ***3/4

AEW Full Gear 2024 Preview & Predictions

This Saturday is the penultimate AEW PPV of 2024, Full Gear!  Like last year's November spectacular, this lineup isn't the most stacked, but as always I'll give this company the benefit of the doubt when it comes to PPV.  In addition to the eight main card matches we'll finally get that Mariah May Championship Celebration she's been teasing for three months.  I guess Toni Storm wasn't ready to come back until now?  

Anyway, let's look at what IS on here....

Zero Hour: "Big Boom" AJ vs. QT Marshall

This is just a cross-promotional thing and if this YouTuber guy I've never heard of before now gets more eyes on the AEW product I'm fine with it as a pre-show deal.  AJ was apparently an indie wrestler 20 years ago so someone, maybe QT himself, figured let's bring him in to draw some casual viewers.  Problem is they didn't really do much with it on AEW television.  But whatever, AJ will get a feelgood win.

Pick: AJ

TNT Championship: Jack Perry vs. Daniel Garcia

Finally Danny's getting a title match on PPV.  He really should've beaten MJF a few months ago but hadn't signed his new deal yet, not sure why.  This feud has been lowkey pretty interesting, with Garcia easily manhandling Perry but unable to get to him psychologically.  Like a Batman-Joker dynamic.  I hope if Garcia wins (and I think he will), Perry continues to turn him into a monster like they've been teasing.  Hell, even Daddy Magic was uncomfortable with how far Danny went.  The followup will be key here.  Match should be very good.

Pick: Garcia